Approximately 20 million tires in Brazil are discarded on an annual basis, and most of these end up in landfills, lakes and rivers. Amazon Sandals is a new brand of eco-friendly footwear, which strives to save at least a few of those tires from spending the next couple hundred years decomposing and taking a nasty toll on the earth.

Amazon sandals are flip-flops produced in Brazil and made from from these recycled tires. The flip-flops currently come in two different styles. The "Tupi" style features a black sole, while the "Cipo" style has natural fibers from the Cipo plant running through the soles. Both styles are offered with five different colors of straps - gold, green, silver, black and white.

Only 20 per cent of those 20 million discareded tires are recycled in Brazil. Of those, Amazon is able to recycle thousands of them, cutting them into chips, processing them into powder and purifying them using sieves. That powder is then ground and the rubber is devulcanized, resulting in a material that can be pressed to form the sole of the sandals. Since Amazon formed, they have been able to recycle more than 800,000 tires at their Sao Paulo factory, which currently employs 185 people.

Check out Amazon flip-flops after the jump to see the range of colors and order a pair of your own.

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